2 unrelated questioons: 1-uprage from mirrorless?, 2-service?

There is an obstacle in my decision process re. K1. Pentax has no importer nor service here. A letter I mailed to Ricoh about it was ignored/not replied. This brings me here again to ask questions:
1. Did anyone in this forum upgrade from Sony A7x or Fuji X camera to K1? If you did, can you share with me how does it feel in handling (weight, no electronic view finder etc.)

2. Abut service and maintenance... I can't buy Pentax in Israel (nor to get service) but I can do so in the States. I read lots of complaints on how bad and slow Pentax service in the States is. I know old Pentax needed no service, how different is the situation today? With your experience and my local situation, should I buy K1 or give up on it?

I bought my K-5 from Adorama. And, I bought a 5-year world-wide Mack warrantee with it. Doing so was still a good saving over the New Zealand K-5 price, at the time. I have not owned a A7 but a friend of mine owns one and I have played with it quite a bit. It's a great camera, but I hate the fact that it does not have an optical viewfinder. So, if I could afford a K-1 now, then it would be an easy decision for me to buy.

There is an obstacle in my decision process re. K1. Pentax has no importer nor service here. A letter I mailed to Ricoh about it was ignored/not replied. This brings me here again to ask questions:
1. Did anyone in this forum upgrade from Sony A7x or Fuji X camera to K1? If you did, can you share with me how does it feel in handling (weight, no electronic view finder etc.)

2. Abut service and maintenance... I can't buy Pentax in Israel (nor to get service) but I can do so in the States. I read lots of complaints on how bad and slow Pentax service in the States is. I know old Pentax needed no service, how different is the situation today? With your experience and my local situation, should I buy K1 or give up on it?

It's very understandable if you pass on a product you can't get local support for, Ruvy.

I've been extremely lucky with not one failure of any item in 5 years .. Not the K7, not the DA18-55II, not the Samyang 14mm, not the AF-540FGZ or AF-540FGZII flashes, not the Cactus V6 or RF60 (those are my bought new items), plus not one failure of any old manual lens either or accessory. I'm up to about 50,000 clicks so far, so good! Very lucky I think.

But, I've seen plenty bad stories of service problems and delays even when there is support nearby, so I also appreciate its a difficult decision and should be a big part of the thinking. Maybe get an idea of shipping prices to a reliable service centre in another country and check out the international warranty options before committing. If you can get some reassurance of backup from somewhere then the K1 sounds like a camera to be grabbed if you can!

Sold my Sony A7Rii after a mere 891 shutter actuation, because of the electronic viewfinder. In my opinion the electronic viewfinder cannot keep up with continues fast action shooting and studio work. If you want to chimp after ever shot the Sony is fine. The battery life on the A7RII is very short. There is not a great deal of difference in the weight of the cameras once you attach the lens to the camera especially with the new G Master lens. The interface on the Sony is not intuitive as it is on the K-1...to many function in hard to understand menus. The image quality of the Sony is outstanding...no question about that.

Sold my Sony A7Rii after a mere 891 shutter actuation, because of the electronic viewfinder. In my opinion the electronic viewfinder cannot keep up with continues fast action shooting and studio work. If you want to chimp after ever shot the Sony is fine. The battery life on the A7RII is very short. There is not a great deal of difference in the weight of the cameras once you attach the lens to the camera especially with the new G Master lens. The interface on the Sony is not intuitive as it is on the K-1...to many function in hard to understand menus. The image quality of the Sony is outstanding...no question about that.

To sum it up, I would rate the K-1 as the best camera I have ever shot with bar none.

Thank you fwbigd for your reply. It really is the kind of hands on experience I was looking for and very close to my line of thinking.
Hope you don't mind couple of additional questionsIs your short trial of the A7r2 the sole experience with mirrorless? I suspect it was more difficult for you to get used to the electronic VF that coming back to OVF. Am I right? From your perspective, which Pentax primes has equall quality to SOny GM?
Ruvy

---------- Post added 05-09-16 at 10:45 PM ----------

Thank you mcgegni, clackers and MarkJerling.
I think my question about service was not the brightest. As you have stated, I can either not buy the camera if there is no service or buy it and take the risk. I know its naive on my part to look for replies like "I had no problem" with hope same will be with me. Though you didn't state so but I did get the picture. Thanks.

You assumption is correct. I shoot a lot of sports and studio work...the OLED on the Sony only displays the last image when shooting at high speed, so your shooting blind because the refresh rate of the electronic view finder is not fast enough to keep up with the frame rate of the camera. That was a real disappoint to me. If your a single shoot shooter the Sony is great. Don't get me wrong the images from the Sony are outstanding. DP Review just gave the K-1 a glowing report saying that the dynamic range is the best of all full frame cameras. Pentax K-1's Pixel Shift challenges medium-format dynamic range: Digital Photography Review

I would recommend the three FA Limiteds, 31mm, 43mm, 77mm and the DA Limited 70mm f2.4 which works on the K-1 with minor vignetting.

As far as service I have only had problems with one Pentax lens the DA* 16-50. It was fixed the first time under warranty. The second and third time it was out of the warranty period yet Ricoh authorized the repair free of charge.